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first meat barbecue in a long time
Sunday, May 22 2016
In the summer time, that guy Kel at the bottom of Dug Hill Road who occasionally does work on our cars can't do big jobs (like clutch replacements), because that's the peak of pool season, when he maintains swimming pools. But he can do smaller jobs like brake work, so today Gretchen and I dropped off our Prius and a set of brake pads so he could replace them. Gretchen then drove me and the Subaru homeward on her way to her Sunday bookstore shift in Woodstock, but I arranged for her to drop me and Ramona off at the schoolbus turnaround a half mile short of home. That way when she took Neville with her to work, Ramona wouldn't feel left out. I'd also remembered to bring my big battery-powered chainsaw so I could clear some of the fallen trees blocking a mountain bike trail leading from our trail system to Dug Hill Road near the bus turnaround. Those trees have blocked the trail since Hurricane Irene. But soon after Gretchen dropped us off, Ramona treed some creature and began barking in a way that suggested the creature was a bear. But when I ran over to see, I was amused (and relieved) to see the treed creature was instead a fat Woodchuck perched awkwardly (and very still) high in a tree. Woodchucks aren't good climbers, but if a tree is their only escape, they will take it.
Unfortunately, the battery on my chainsaw was exhausted by cutting through a very thick tree, and there was little left to do much more cutting. But in a few excursions with that saw, I could get this trail clear enough for a mountain bike to get through.
A couple hours later, Kel called to say the brakes were done and that the price was $80 (which is low, but kind of a lot for him). I rode my bike down the hill and retrieved the Prius, allowing me to drive down to Ray and Nancy's place for the next event of the evening.
Our friends Alana and Jeff had invited us to their half of their duplex in Saugerties for a little backyard barbecue, and I'd arranged to carpool there with Ray and Nancy after they returned from hiking near Harriman. All our dogs had also been invited and were coming, but Neville would be traveling separately with Gretchen when she got off work.
So there we were in the backyard of Jeff & Alana's place, with an age-eclectic mix of about a dozen people. Alana is in her 30s and I assumed the younger people present were her friends. There were also a number of people such as Crazy Peter who look to be in their late 50s at the youngest. This was the first barbecue I'd been to in a long time at which meat was being served, though Jeff had thoughtfully provided a separate grill for those of us who do not eat meat. In addition to a six pack of IPA, Gretchen had had me bring a bunch of vegan faux meats suitable for grilling. (Later, when these were grilled, they seemed to pull their weight as pro-vegan propaganda).
Earlier, to help me crank through some annoying web development for Alex, one of my old web development clients, I'd taken a 25 milligram dose of ground-up time-release Adderall, so I was in a talkative mood, particularly once I started drinking. There was a youngish guy there who seemed to want to have deep conversations with everyone, and these conversations always came back to either Burning Man or his father's work for various intelligence services (though he also supposedly was a member of Earth First! for a time, and not as a spy). He seemed surprised that I actually knew about the CIA ruse to mine manganese nodules when what they really wanted to do was raise a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine off the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, the dogs were having a great time, with most of the socializing happening between Nick & Chrissy's dog Chongo and Ramona.
Gretchen left awhile before I did, taking our dogs, and I decided to ride home with Ray and Nancy (that was, after all, where my car was). By the time we left, Alana was what one might call "white girl wasted." I don't often see people get that level of drunk at the parties I go to these days, but the party had a strange energy to it and, of course, Alana didn't have to drive.
Back at Ray and Nancy's place, Ray and I stayed up drinking scotch and watched the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, the one with the heartbreaking (if temporally perplexing) revelation of how Hodor came to get his name.
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